Ever since he found out his home was lost but not destroyed in the time war it has been burning in the background. Genie out of bottle ,Cat out of bag. Eventually he will have to deal with it. Eventually he will get home. What happens next?. Should ,could he bring his planet ,people, family back into "our" universe/reality?. Always going to be consequences. He was warned about what would happen several times. If Galifrey and the time lords return the time war could reignite plunging the rest of the universe into chaos. Do we really want to be in the cross fire ?. Tasha Lem warned him she would do anything to stop that happening. Plus Kovarian is still out there maybe she will return too. He would only return for a short time anyway . He is not going to give up traveling all of time and space. Wouldn't that be more upsetting for his family to briefly see him then he is gone again ?. Maybe he should leave Galifrey where it is. However the Doctor being the Doctor he won't. Look forward to seeing where they go next with this storyline. Imagine him giving Clara a tour round some of his old haunts.

As near as I can tell, the story thread of the hunt for Gallifrey was a gimmick to take Doctor Who into the next 50 years. With this in mind, I don't think we need to worry about what will happen when he finds it for at least the next 40odd years.

This is the thing, people seem to want it back... but then fewer people seem to have a realistic idea of what could be done with it.

Like the Time War before it, it's the backburning driving force of the show that seldom gets mentioned but is always there. I'm happy for it to burn slowly over the next however many years - it's not the sort of thing I feel is warranted a story arc, it wasn't meant as the set up for the next development of the show.

I feel it would have been like how Series 1 focused on Bad Wolf and then the Time War burned away in the background. Did anyone then think we were destined to see the Time War by the end of Series 2? Even by the end of Series 7 we have still only been afforded glimpses of it, and that's how it should be. Similarly, I like the idea of small nods to Gallifrey in the background... small consequences of its return, but not the focus for a very long time.

I don't want to see The Doctor back at home. It's not what the story of Doctor Who is about. I don't want to see him visiting all these familiar haunts - as he said in Gridlock, where's the fun in that for him? I feel that Gallifrey is best left to the imagination, the occasional visit for the bigger stories every few years or so. But a full-on return, what would drive the show from there?

I say bring it back, but make the Time Lords even more isolationist now because of their experience in the Time War.

I think we currently have the worst of all worlds. Gallifrey is locked away in a pocket dimension and an un-time locked past version is sitting there in the DW universe. Which surely the Daleks would destroy in an instant if they "notice" it?

I don't think there's an unlocked version anywhere - as of the current state of 'our' universe, Gallifrey doesn't exist. There is no real rational scientific case to be made either for or against this, but the current 'state of play' wouldn't make sense if Gallifrey was at all accessible.

What if; the Time Lords mostly remain in the parallel universe, and occasionally send individuals through. That way we can have favourites like Romana back.

Either they can't return due to the stigma against them, or have decided it be better they watch the universe from a distance; now that they're not a part of the universe, they can be impartial when, and if they intervene.

It'll give them that mysterious edge they used to have.

At the same time, the Time Lords weren't the be all and end all of races. There were many things more ancient than their race. Like the race that created the Roston warrior robots, or the Beast within the Impossible Planet.

The show should allude to more stuff that even the Doctor, with all his wisdom can't understand. The Universe should be the big ominous mystery, not the Doctor or his people.

But that was supposed to be Gallifrey in "Listen".

Was it though? I know there are many theories but that barn, first seen in Day of the Doctor, was never explicitly said to be on Gallifrey.... (unless I missed something)

When watching Day of the Doctor, my assumption was that the War Doctor had taken his TARDIS to another planet where the barn was in the middle of nowhere - although of course that planet had to be close-ish to Gallifrey. Why he chose that place and barn was never explained - no where it was or on which planet.

It is only in Listen, when it was revealed to be somewhere the young Doctor slept at night, that people started to think that it had to be on Gallifrey. Maybe it was the Doctor's family holiday home on a nearby planet

So... I don't really watch 'Listen' and think they travelled to Gallifrey in the past - just the planet where that barn happened to be - and thats not necessarily Gallifrey.

There are a number of entirely-made-up reasons that could explain this (e.g. since the Moment opened up the Time Lock to allow the Doctor(s) access to the big red button, it might still be open to only the Doctor, and Gallifrey's past accessible through that), but I prefer to think of Listen as an anomaly for the sake of a good story.

After all, if the Doctor knew that using the telepathic circuits would make it possible to worm your way through impossible temporal and dimensional barriers, then he'd find Gallifrey in a heartbeat. It would also make Clara look like an absolute monster for knowing how to find it and not telling him.

Yet another example of incomprehensible plots of t Moffats era. I was under the impression that Gallifrey was locked in a pocket universe in Day of the Doctor and escaped through the last of the cracks in night of the Doctor. And yet in series eight the Doctor refers to himself as the last of the time lords.

Does he? I genuinely don't remember that.

And in Time of the Doctor I assumed the Time Lords were able to aid the Doctor's regeneration but were still, in effect, 'lost'. The crack shuts quite emphatically once they've helped trigger another regeneration.

One of the episodes the doctor says he's the last of the time lords. The one with the TARDIS shrinking I'm sure. Can't remember the name, first time I've had no inkling yo rewatch an episode nevermind buy the box set.
If Gallfreys lost, the doctors still not the last of the time lords

Yeah, I remember him saying it too so it's not just you.

I can't remember the episode but if you're right then that'd be Flatline you're after.

Didn't unleash the moment on Gallifrey? So the barn was on Gallifrey it makes no sense sense for the barn to be anywhere other than Gallifrey

I'm assuming since Gallifrey is still lost to our universe he's still technically Last of the timelords. He has no contact up until Death of Heaven with any other timelord. I think the mention of last of the timelords was Clara calling him that

The Time Lords were trying to escape through the cracks - although the Doctor didn't want to lose them again, he also knew that he couldn't let them through, and he also had to stop those who wanted to ensure they could never come through. In the end, they decided to back off and trust him to arrange another means of salvation.

Technically there are two surviving time lords in "our" universe /reality Doctor and Missy. Somehow someway she managed to not only escape time locked Galifrey but regenerate changing gender in the process. Liked the phone conversation in 3.12 TSOD. 10 and Master were talking about their chosen titles. Master called the Doctor sanctimonious or something. 10 said using the name "master" was a "psychiatrists field day". Be interesting to see what happens next time they meet each other.

They should have The Time Lords off in the other universe, but then they develop over millennium into The Guardians, two of which are assigned to each universe (from that universe's beginning all the way unto it's end) in order to keep that particular universe in balance. That would be a nice back story tie in for The Guardians and where they came from.

I'm sure he'll find it in time for the 100th anniversary.